What's The One That Got Away?

[Old Growth]

Evan's Heiden F5 comes to mind but, i wait, playing the "very long game"....

[Dave Greenspoon]

A plain-vanilla Washburn, likely late 1970's. Fit my hand perfectly, sounded amazing.

Traded away my MK-O for an octave. The MK was tweaked to perfection, especially the neck and frets. Octave is long gone. I still regret the trade.

[HarrisonMandolin]

The first mandolin that ever gave me first-date-wobbly feelings inside was a Collings MF with a cherry red sunburst. I didn't know an instrument could play that easily...that was many years ago and eventually I discovered my love for the mandolin road seemingly less traveled: A styles.

[yankees1]

Reminds me of the lady I should have married !

[Jeff Mando]

I told this story before here, but mine was a mandolin that most mandolin players wouldn't looks twice at. It was a 40's-50's Harmony oval hole cheapo, nothing fancy, but what a sound. Featherweight, too. (as if mandolins are heavy.....) Anyway it was at a flea market on a Sunday, it was only $30 and I didn't have $30 bucks! 35+ years ago, no ATM around, so I had to just leave it. And, unfortunately I have been chasing that sound ever since and it is the standard I measure all mandolins against......granted that sound is in my head, but few mandolins have measured up in 35+ years.

Might be a subtitle on my tombstone, "he was such a cheapskate, he couldn't even afford a $30 mandolin"

[G. Fisher]

Neil Dean 2-point

[Don Grieser]

One? There's so many that I let go of, but I'm really happy with the Heiden I ended up with.

There was this orange 2 point Nugget that I should have hung onto, though, now that I think about it. I wonder where it ended up.

[Jim Garber]

Neil Dean 2-point

That reminds me of a Doug Woodley mandolin I played at a CMSA convention where I also met Neil Dean. Actually Will Kimble was selling it. It was this F-2. I think I played it for about 20 minutes and luckily I did not have money in my bank account.

[Ranger Bob]

Two. The first was a ‘64 Strat. Played surf guitar back then. Sold it when I went into the Army in late ‘65. The second is much less exotic and not at all legendary. It was a Collings MT2-O V. I called it “Frankenmando.” It was blonde and someone had used it as a battle axe. An unheralded luthier pieced it back together and inserted a matching couple of pieces of wood in a couple of places where the original wood was lost. He did a really nice job of matching and finishing. He put on hardware he had laying around. When I got it I upgraded the TP and tuners. Man, that was a nice playing and sounding mandolin. It’s out there somewhere. Sure wish I could get it back.

[Jack Roberts]

Many years ago Don Macrostie was building a Red Diamond F5 for me, but I fell on financial difficulties and after many sleepless nights (I was starting a new business and had a lot of unexpected expenses) I had to give it up to some very lucky person. The finances all worked out in the end, so I would have been fine if I had just gone ahead as planned. I would have been very happy to be playing a Red Diamond all these years!

[Tom Wright]

When I became interested in a 10-string mandolin I saw a Buchanan briefly listed on Ebay. It sold, and I ended up ordering a new one (and two more).

[John Rosett]

I won a Flatiron A-5 Artist in the Frets Magazine giveaway in 1985. I played that mandolin every day for 18 years until I foolishly traded it for an F style mandolin. If anybody here has it, let me know...

[Bill McCall]

Long before I played mandolin (early 70’s), passed on a pristine pre 1921 F4. Didn’t know any better.

[mandroid]

DeWick Iucci.. acousric 'cannon' (or so it is said) shaped like a banjo mandolin.

[Marcus CA]

Two mandos from one trip to Carter’s in 2017. No regrets, though, since both were way beyond my price range.

They had two identical F5’s by Oliver Apitius. One was from 2016, and the other was from 15-20 years earlier, but both had a $6,500 price tag. Even though the older one had had all that time to open up, the newer one sounded WAY better. I found out later that Apitius had changed the bracing in 2014 or 2015, which explained what I was hearing. A month later, I checked Carter’s website. They still had the old one, but the new one was gone.

The second one was one of the three Loars that they had at the time. After a buddy and I had been there a couple of hours, we (actually, he) got up the nerve to ask if we could play a Loar. The salesman insisted that we play all three, because he felt that one had a way better sound than the other two. Not wanting to be rude 😃, we agreed.

Two of them were priced around $160K, and one was priced at $75K, because its back had gotten fragmented at some point and been reassembled. We listened blindly to each other play all three, and both of us unknowingly picked out the ugly duckling as the best of the Loars and felt that it clearly sounded better than anything else we had played in the high-end room. Did it sound $55-70K better than every other instrument in the room? No, but it was definitely the best of the bunch. The other two Loars may still be at Carter’s, but that one is gone.

[Nick Gellie]

You wait long enough and another will turn up for sure.

[Jim Garber]

There was a snakehead Sheraton brown plain A at RetroFret that I played a few months ago and it just sounded and played right. I didn't have the cash, they couldn't trade me since it was a consignment. I certainly didn't need it but it was one of those where you would not think all that much of it by looking at it online but playing it was wonderful. Gibson is often that way.

[usqebach]

Apitius A model some years ago (8 or 9?), before Oliver took his hiatus. Someone was selling it here for around $3500. I was first in line, but balked for an hour or two and the seller moved on. I've now got the BRW two point (avatar) and can't justify buying one of Oliver's new builds (yet!).

[seankeegan]

[Kevin Winn]

I'm going the other way and predict that there will be a Sullivan A that I will miss out on....

[Bill McCall]

I'm going the other way and predict that there will be a Sullivan A that I will miss out on....

I'm hoping its the one that I covet

[Jill McAuley]

There was a Collings MT2-V that I came close to buying years ago, there was just something about it, so effortless to play and sounded the business. Didn't take the plunge and kind of always regretted it. Also a battered F4 that was just magic, but beyond my means at the time.

[Josh Levine]

I'm hoping its the one that I covet

Ya'll from Portland or something?

I got to noodle around on "Ella" the other night. Best Sullivan I have had the pleasure to play. Really great dry woody tones coming out of that one.

[Kevin Winn]

Ya'll from Portland or something?

I got to noodle around on "Ella" the other night. Best Sullivan I have had the pleasure to play. Really great dry woody tones coming out of that one.

Yep. There's an F that makes an occasional appearance at Taborgrass and I got to play it at the Winlock Picker's Fest last summer and it pretty much melted my brain. Plus hearing Ella on the latest Mandolin Orange album (especially the bonus ep) has me waiting impatiently. Probably can't afford one for a while, having just picked up a Kimble....

[Simon DS]

Just bought a cheap plywood guitar for 5 quid.
New strings 4 quid.
Put the new 1st string in 1st string place. E.
New 2nd string in second place. A.
New 4th string in third place. D.
And new 5th string in 4th place. G.
Old 5th string in 5th place. G.
New 6th string in 6th place. D.

Anyway, this is my tenor guitar that didn’t get away.
Love it. Going to paint it. Sounds great!